


When the Levee Breaks

by MrowSaystheCat



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: F/M, M/M, This is just a thought I had, and needed to get it out of my head
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-10
Updated: 2016-05-10
Packaged: 2018-06-07 13:02:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6805771
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MrowSaystheCat/pseuds/MrowSaystheCat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Daryl had been Glenn’s shadow since the moment he’d been accepted. Knew he’d be needed to complete the bridge over the sweet pull of oblivion which sometimes stretched out, luxurious, before Glenn’s inner-eye.</p>
            </blockquote>





	When the Levee Breaks

**Author's Note:**

> This is a rather dark 'what if'. 
> 
> I'm not trying to say I want Maggie to be the victim of Lucille.  
> This is just a thought I needed to get out of my head. No one throw bricks at me, please.
> 
> Some of the quotes might be off, but they don't need to be spot on when the characters know exactly what the other is speaking about.

He woke with a start; the sound of crunching bone still playing through his mind. A shiver tore through him, and he covered his mouth against the sob which choked up from his throat. Glenn turned on the bed, seeking the warmth of Daryl’s form at his side. The image of Maggie being subjected to that barbarism would not leave his mind’s eye. Over and over, he saw her. Every night. There was never a solution, never a way to save her. Never would be. Just like that, she was gone. Just like that, his world was brought to a literal crumble. Everything they had, all the promises the future held. Maggie, snuffed out and their child with her. He always felt as someone caught him around the throat in a headlock as he screamed out her name and started to move for her; unable to refuse the pull of reaction before he was thrown to the ground and kicked. Relentlessly.

His head spins as it had then, and he pushes himself against Daryl tightly; willing the images and the noises to stop haunting him. Daryl’s arms are around him then, holding him close; stroking his back. Knowing Glenn has to work through the waking nightmare himself. The pain it brought his heart, and his body. The scars which were written through his soul.

Daryl had suffered through it, too. The beast had come for Maggie, and Glenn had been ready to pitch himself in to Hell itself to pull her back – then those men had Glenn. On the ground; their feet flying, and Daryl had torn himself from his own place of bottomless suffering to protect the younger man. In the end, they both had been knocked unconscious. Silenced by violence, their souls floating along with Maggie’s before they’d been called back to their bodies. Rick and Michonne over them; the morning’s light filtering in through the trees. Beyond them, the circle of their family around Maggie’s body. The remains of the world which had been torn away.

He sobs for a long time. The span is just a slight bit shorter than the morning before. Again, the sun is filtering in at them; this time, they are huddled in a bed, tucked safely away in a house in Alexandria. Not the one Maggie had lived in, Glenn couldn’t take being there without her. Daryl understood. Hell, Daryl had made the suggestion himself, as soon as he’d seen Glenn’s face upon entering the abode they’d once dwelled in. They’d just gotten back from the Hilltop after a month, both of them having had the need to be patched up there.

During their recuperation, several things had cropped up. Daryl was in love with Glenn, had been since the quarry camp they’d met in. He’d thrown the confession at Glenn’s feet during a very dark hour, when he’d found the younger man letting a blade whisper along his skin; tears rolling down his cheeks. That had been a Hellish night, too. So many things said, so many moments where Daryl could have sworn Glenn was going to disregard him. Just leave him. Bequeath him nightmares and heartache. But, he didn’t. He remained. Glenn didn’t walk off along the edge of oblivion. Since then? Glenn was slowly coming to terms with his loss, and the fact that Maggie would want him to live his life; but his heart still throbbed for that loss in her absence. Daryl understood that, accepted it. And Glenn accepted the hidden affections of the other man; surprised at them, truly – and then, finding himself not so surprised. There had been hushed conversations, revelations of self for each of the two; in the loss, they built a bridge between themselves. And the abyss which threatened Glenn suddenly wasn’t so deep or dark. Body was healed. Soul was flagging a little behind; same with the young man’s heart. They returned home, hand in hand; Maggie’s ghost smiling softly in their direction.

But, the nightmares followed them from that place in the woods where Maggie’s spirit had been chased from her with a bat and barbed wire. They gifted Glenn with another self; one set and determined to have a repayment of blood in blood. No one was aghast at this, least of all Daryl. They all knew what had been taken, what promises had been torn away from his hands.

When they rise from the bed, they prepare for the day together; no separate showers or shying away. Daryl had been Glenn’s shadow since the moment he’d been accepted. Knew he’d be needed to complete the bridge over the sweet pull of oblivion which sometimes stretched out, luxurious, before Glenn’s inner-eye. He knew the Kid’s nature, knew what the monster named Negan had stitched together within the beating heart of compassion. Corruption of spirit; riddled through Glenn so deep that sometimes? Sometimes, it was like looking in to someone else’s eyes for Daryl, and the older man didn’t know what to do with that, or how to heal it. Or, rather, knew there was no cure for it, and blamed himself on some levels. Glenn would always come back, though; but the brightness was forever dimmed.

“If I’d just come back when ya said…”

“Don’t. You know it isn’t true. Maggie…” Glenn looks away, jaw working softly as he thinks over the situation in the truth of it. Wanting to call a thing by its name, even if it hurt. “She needed a doctor, and they had to go. Even if we’d both been there, even if we’d both helped to rush her to the Hilltop? It wouldn’t change the way things turned out. This isn’t on you.” There’s a pause, and Glenn looks up. But, it isn’t Glenn. Not his Glenn, the Kid that had done runs for their camp so many times; fearless and kind, goodness personified. No, this is the new Glenn; the one that came after the floods. Dangerous, cold, calculating; as slick and deadly as black ice. His eyes are flat, but there’s something alive within them. “This is on him, and he will pay for it.”

“Glenn.”

“…You know you want it, too.”

“This isn’t for her; that’s what ya said, remember? She’s gone. This is for you.”

“And I don’t really give a damn.” With that, the younger man smirked and walked out in the hall. Then, he stopped, and came back; reaching out for Daryl’s hand. He looked up in to those blue eyes; seeing the way they were wide still, the shock of words haunting him from the past apparent on his features. “I have to do this, Daryl. Even if it is just for me, like you said – and like I said before to you, about Denise. You were right. You were always right, and I was a fucking idiot.” There’s a mimic of the lazy, lopsided smile which sometimes came to Glenn’s face, once, before he ended a sentence with a good pun or teasing. “We all were, and she paid it up for us. And now, we know the root – and if we don’t put this bastard out of his misery? Then everything she wanted is gone. All of it. I can’t have that, man.”

**Author's Note:**

> There may or may not be more, depending upon if more ideas come. Also, I posted this in the Darlenn shipping thread on a forum I'm a member of. Belle Sorciere is my username there. Just wanted to clear the water before any mud came, just in case!


End file.
